Sunday, October 9, 2011

The custom cover variant has become the new iteration of the marketing gimmick that is the alternate cover. If a store buys enough copies of a book, the publisher will print a custom cover featuring the store's name. IDW did it for Godzilla, and Marvel just did it for Spider-Man.

Nice way to get your customers excited, only slightly more controversial than the idea of gimmick covers in the first place, a topic upon which I have spoken before. Now, the goal in doing a variant cover is to entice buyers to buy EACH of the covers to keep their collections "complete". But in this case, we're talking about dozens of covers, spread out to individual stores across the country. Surely the attempt to collect a full set of those covers would be impossible. Right?

Through a combination of trolling eBay, calls to individual shops and requests via Facebook for people to pick up copies for him locally (One cover was only available in Japan, for example) he was able to collect a full set for just shy of twelve hundred dollars. Now, there's a definite sense of accomplishment in doing something that no one else has been able to do. But IMHO, there's a greater sense of accomplishment when there's a large number of people who would WANT to do it. There's a lot of entries in the Guinness Book of World Records for things that damn near nobody would ever bother to try to do, let alone beat, except for the sole fact of it would get them in the Guinness Book of World Records.

I am in no position to cast the first stone here. I have in my possession a complete run of the American Perry Rhodan books (Yes, including the Master Publications magazine releases - who wants to touch me?) a complete run of The Destroyer, and am one shy of a complete run of Doc Savage Paperbacks (Double edition 117 - 118, since you asked). Similarly, I have multiple editions of E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensmen series, as well as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, including the "bootleg" Ace editions. But those were out of my love for the books and series in question. This seems much more like an attempt to Do What Has Not Been Done, as opposed to some spontaneous show of affection for the issue.

But back the industry. These are the two most intriguing paragraph's from the over-moneyed and under-goaled gentleman's story:

One thing became clear during the chase...retailers for the most part were not prepared for the onslaught of communications from completionists. I contacted numerous retailers who said they would get back with me whom never did, or did so after a month. It was great to contact most retailers who understood the desire to own them all and they were more than happy to sell a copy at a reasonable rate and ship it.

There were some retailers who would refuse to communicate with non-local consumers, some retailers who would not mail under any circumstance, and some retailers who decided they were going to jack their cost way up to take advantage of the completionists.

Now in honesty, even though the cover price of a variant book is the same as a regular cover, it does cost more to the store, because in most cases they have to buy quite a few other titles just to get the right to buy the variant. So if a particular cover requires the purchase of fifty copies of the standard cover, as an example, that one book effectively cost the store the cost seventy-five dollars or so, based on the average discount they get. So if they never sell all those standard covers, they have to charge at least that much for the variant simply to break even. The same holds true of "chase" trading cards - someone had to open a box or a case full of cards to find that card, so the cost needs to reflect that expense, since the majority of those other cards will not sell.

So I don't see it as "taking advantage" of the customer to charge a premium for these rare items. If anyone is taking advantage, it's the publishers, taking advantage of the collector mentality of the market.

But let's look at the other times that a store will attract new customers. When a book makes the papers, say when Captain America or Batman died, and then returned a few months later, or the Spider-Man / Barack Obama issue. Those weren't variant issues, they were regular issues of a monthly title. But they made the papers, so stores get besieged by newcomers keen on getting that book. At that point, the stores have two basic choices:

Make hay while the sun shines, work under the assumption that they'll never see these people again, and get what they can for this one-time sale

See this as a possibility to get more regular customers, make up some coupons for a percentage off their NEXT visit, get a bunch of stuff on sale while the newcomers are coming through, and aim for more long-term income.

I think it's safe to safe to say the lion's share of stores went with plan one.

The best way, I feel, for a store to benefit from the variants and heavily publicized books is in getting new regular customers, and maybe a bit of press for yourself. Say you score one of these hot variant covers. You could slap a hundred-dollar price tag on it (and settle for a fraction of that a year or two from now), or you could, say, raffle it off, and donate the proceeds to a local children's hospital or charity. One phone call to the local paper could get you a photo in the leisure section, which could attract more folks to your store. Make sure your local TV station knows about the next hot comic, and see if you can finagle yourself an interview about it. The media is very lazy - once they have your name and number, it's amazing how they'll declare you the local expert and consult you when any comic-related story crosses their desk.

I know it's hard to overlook that short-term payday, but with all the things happening to the industry today, anything you can do to increase your market, or at least your potential market, is a good thing to try.

As an aisde, I'm rather pleased that at no point in this post did I accidentally misspell "variants" as "varmints". That would have been way too Freudian.

Monday, October 3, 2011

This blog post is a part of the Dick van Dyke Show blogathon, hosted by the folks at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear. Click the link to see a list of other folks touching on the same topic today.

I went the opposite direction from most kids. I knew that what I saw on TV was pretend. In fact, I knew this so well, I assumed that save for the news, EVERYTHING on TV was pretend, including cities. I assumed that not only were the people fictional, the places were as well. I mean I knew there was a New York City, but I knew there was no 704 Houser St.

So this is why, until I was about 20, I didn't know New Rochelle was a real place.

I was driving up to Yonkers with The (eventually) Wife, saw a sign for the exit to New Rochelle, and honestly said "You mean it's actually a place?" She looked at me like I had lobsters on my face. "But that's where Rob and Laura Petrie lived!" She assured me it was indeed a place, and the doors of my world opened just a bit wider.

The Dick Van Dyke show was one of my favorite sitcoms as I was growing up. I first saw Mr. Van Dyke (As most kids my age did) in Mary Poppins, and while the show was far sight from the movie, it became regular viewing for me.Rob and Laura had the kind of relationship The Wife and I have - we have fun, we overreact to things, and while neither of write for a comedy show, we're as witty as the cast of the show. As the title says, as much as we'd like to be Nick and Nora Charles (Heck, I'd settle for Ralph and Sue Dibny, without all the unpleasantness at the end, of course), we more often than not end up as Rob and Laura.

I've said for many years that Dick Van Dyke is an under-appreciated actor. I've written about two of his films at The Wife's blog: Cold Turkey, a vicious little bit of satire about a small town trying to quit smoking en masse to win a twenty five million dollar prize, and Fitzwilly, a caper flick with Dick as a con man butler who rooks the upper class of New York City, all to keep his bankrupt dowager boss from going to the poorhouse. Neither feature much of his trademark physical comedy, but a lot more of his acting chops.

The Dick Van Dyke Show was much more the work of Carl Reiner, who created the show and appeared as Alan Brady, eponymous star of the show for which Rob wrote. The show was clearly based on Reiner's work as a writer for the legendary Your Show of Shows, starring Sid Caesar. The show featured a true Murderer's Row of writers - Neil Simon, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, and many others cut their teeth on that show. Carl's not the only one to dig into the show for inspiration - Neil Simon wrote Laughter on the 23rd Floor and Mel Brooks produced My Favorite Year, a fictional tale based in that legendary writer's room. Few remember the short lived sitcom starring ex-Roseanne beau Tom Arnold called The Jackie Thomas Show, but after one episode I realized it was essentially an update of the Dick Van Dyke Show, but with the Alan Brady character taking more of a center role. Indeed, the same could be said of 30 Rock as well.

Picking a favorite episode of this series borders on the impossible. But I knew there was going to be a near riot for the right the do "It only Looks Like a Walnut" (Brandie got it over at True Classics) so I went with another flying saucer epic, "Uhnny Uftz"

"Who's Sonny Tufts?"

Rob, Buddy and Sally are pulling an all-nighter at the office, and while the others are out getting coffee, Rob hears an unearthly sound and sees a flying saucer outside the window of his office. Buddy and Sally return too late to see it, and assume Rob was asleep and dreamed it. Rob is adamant, even as he explains that the saucer had lightning bolts on it like the comic strip star Brick Bradford, and the eerie ship spoke, saying what sounded like "Sonny Tufts".

Laura is no more receptive to Rob's tale, and chides him gently. He gets no further when he reports the sighting to the government, and when his psychologist friend assures him that he really did likely imagine it, he lets it pass. But after another all-nighter the next evening, Rob hears and sees it again. This time, however, Buddy returns in time to hear the Gas Music From Jupiter, which they determine is now coming from somewhere upstairs in the building.

Exploring the floor above, they are confronted by a man who seems to know about the saucer, and is most distressed that it had any witnesses. After a seemingly threatening request to enter his office, he reveals that there really is a saucer, but it's a toy, and the secrecy is to make sure the invention isn't stolen before Christmas. Rob and Buddy agree to keep mum i exchange for one favor - a five minute chance to spin the thing around the room.

Dick Van Dyke gets the chance to do a bit of schtick, lots of fright reactions and bit of work up on the office windowsill. He also excels at talking to himself, and has a fun scene as he listens to perfectly normal sounds that seem terrifying at three in the morning when you're only person in a huge office building.

Two notable guest stars in the episode - Madge "Aunt Harriet" Blake as a batty lady at the Metro North station who claims to have seen the saucers as well, and that little old toymaker was John Mylong, who played the elder scientist in the infamous masterpiece Robot Monster.

This is an episode I saw the first half of as a kid at my grandmother's house, and had to head for home before the payoff. I didn't see the end of the episode for almost ten years, so needless to say I was primed to learn the secret of the mysterious saucer.